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Alan Davey's Psychedelic Warlords Captain Lockheed & The Starfighters Live Review by Gary Hill Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters is a 1974 album from Robert Calvert. Calvert was best known for his time with Hawkwind, and the album included appearances from quite a few Hawkwind members including Dave Brock, Nik Turner and Lemmy Kilmister. As you might guess, this disc often feels like a long lost Hawkwind album. It's also a favorite of mine. A few years ago Alan Davey (who was a member of Hawkwind for years) put together a band called "Psychedelic Warlords." They played quite a few live shows, and in the case of the show captured here did the entire album from start to finish. The original albums includes skits interspersed with the musical pieces. For the majority of those here, Davey took the original recordings and remastered them and added live synthesizer. For fans of this album, this show works so well. They really manage to capture the magic and update it. If you like the original disc, I can't recommend this enough. This review is available in book (paperback and hardcover) in Music Street Journal: 2019 Volume 6. More information and purchase links can be found at: garyhillauthor.com/Music-Street-Journal-2019.

Track by Track Review

Franz Josef Strauss, Defence Minister, Reviews the Luftwaffe in 1958 Finding It Somewhat Lacking in Image Potential This is the first skit of the studio album. As mentioned in the overall review, it's a remastered version of the recording from that disc with some live synthesizer added to it.

The Aerospaceage Inferno The bass brings this into being as it powers out of the opening track. They drive this with style and energy. The vocals bring more of a theatric edge to the cut, but it works pretty well in service of the tune. This has a bit harder rocking angle than the original did.

Aircraft Salesmen (A Door in the Foot) Again, this skit comes directly from the album.

The Widow Maker This thing rocks out like crazy. There is a definitely a heavy, harder rocking edge than on the studio version. Once again the more theatric vocals work well here.

Two Test Pilots Discuss the Starfighter's Performance Here we get another skit from the studio album. The synthesizer bits over the top are the addition.

The Right Stuff Always one of my favorites from the album, this thing rocks like crazy. These guys put in a smoking hot live performance of the tune, too.

The Song of the Gremlin, Pt. 1 This is another particularly cool tune as presented on the original album. The vocals on that version are of the more theatrical style, so these fit quite well. This musically presents a bit of an updating of the sound while still capturing all the magic of the original. The hard rocking jam at the end works so well here.

Hero with a Wing Starting with a stripped back section, this channels the original very well.

Ground Control to Pilot This is another of the skits from the original album.

Ejection The hard rocking groove on this number is reproduced so well, with some updating in place. This is closer to the original than some of the Hawkwind versions I've heard. Then again, they were playing the album start to finish, so you'd expect a faithful take on it. This gets screaming hot further down the road.

I Resign This time the skit is a purely live version.

The Song of the Gremlin, Pt. 2 This song was crazy on the studio version. They seem to raise the stakes on the craziness here. This is twisted, demented and so cool with it's bombastic musical concepts. The cool rocking groove later in the track has some smoking hot bass and guitar work built into it.

Bier Garten Here we have the final skit section from the album.

Catch a Falling Starfighter This closing song from the disc has always been packed with magic. They really manage to bring that live with style here.

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